Jean Paul Quotes

There are so many tender and holy emotions flying about in our inward world, which, like angels, can never assume the body of an outward act; so many rich and lovely flowers spring up which bear no seed, that it is a happiness poetry was invented, which receives into its limbs all these incorporeal spirits, and the perfume of all these flowers.

Good actions ennoble us, we are the sons of our own deeds.

The guardian angels of life sometimes fly so high as to be beyond our sight, but they are always looking down upon us.

Joy descends gently upon us like the evening dew, and does not patter down like a hailstorm.

It has been jestingly said that the works of John Paul Richter are almost unintelligible to any but the Germans, and even to some of them. A worthy German, just before Richter's death, edited a complete edition of his works, in which one particular passage fairly puzzled him. Determined to have it explained at the source, he went to John Paul himself. The author's reply was very characteristic: "My good friend, when I wrote that passage, God and I knew what it meant; it is possible that God knows it still; but as for me, I have totally forgotten."

There is a joy in sorrow which none but a mourner can know.

Beauty attracts us men; but if, like an armed magnet it is pointed, beside, with gold and silver, it attracts with tenfold power.

Passion makes the best observations and the sorriest conclusions.

See, indeed, that your daughter is thoroughly grounded and experienced in household duties; but take care, through religion and poetry, to keep her heart open to heaven.

Universal love is a glove without fingers, which fits all bands alike and none closely; but true affection is like a glove with fingers, which fits one hand only, and sits close to that one.

The Infinate has sowed His name in the heavens in burning stars, but on earth He has sowed His name in tender flowers.

For no one does life drag more disagreeably than for those who try to speed it up.

Never write on a subject until you have read yourself full of it.

The happiness of life consists, like the day, not in single flashes (of light), but in one continuous mild serenity. The most beautiful period of the heart's existence is in this calm equable light, even although it be only moonshine or twilight. Now the mind alone can obtain for us this heavenly cheerfulness and peace.

Flowers never emit so sweet and strong a fragrance as before a storm. When a storm approaches thee, be as fragrant as a sweet-smelling flower.

The words that a father speaks to his children in the privacy of home are not heard by the world, but, as in whispering galleries, they are clearly heard at the end, and by posterity.

Woman and men of retiring timidity are cowardly only in dangers which affect themselves, but the first to rescue when others are in danger.

Never part without loving words to think of during your absence. It may be that you will not meet again in this life.

For sleep, riches and health to be truly enjoyed, they must be interrupted.

What Cicero said of men-that they are like wines, age souring the bad, and bettering the good-we can say of misfortune, that it has the same effect upon them.

Every man has a rainy corner of his life whence comes foul weather which follows him.

A sky full of silent suns.

There are souls which fall from heaven like flowers, but ere they bloom are crushed under the foul tread of some brutal hoof.

The look of a king is itself a deed.

Death gives us sleep, eternal youth, and immortality.

The romance of life begins and ends with two blank pages. Age and extreme old age.

A variety of nothing is superior to a monotony of something.

The gymnasium of running, walking on stilts, climbing, etc. stells and makes hardy single powers and muscles, but dancing, like a corporeal poesy, embellishes, exercises, and equalizes all the muscles at once.

Memory, wit, fancy, acuteness, cannot grow young again in old age, but the heart can.

As a man grows older it is harder and harder to frighten him.

God is an unutterable sigh, planted in the depths of the soul.

Romanticism is beauty without bounds-the beautiful infinite.

We learn our virtues from our friends who love us; our faults from the enemy who hates us. We cannot easily discover our real character from a friend. He is a mirror, on which the warmth of our breath impedes the clearness of the reflection.

I would rather dwell in the dim fog of superstition than in air rarefied to nothing by the air-pump of unbelief-in which the panting breast expires, vainly and convulsively gasping for breath.

Feelings of man are always pure and the brightest to the meeting time and Farewell.

The end we aim at must be known, before the way can be made.

Every friend is to the other a sun, and a sunflower also. He attracts and follows.

A loving maiden grows unconsciously more bold.

Variety of mere nothings gives more pleasure than uniformity of something.

Like the greatest virtue and the worst dogs, the fiercest hatred is silent.

Two aged men, that had been foes for life, Met by a grave, and wept - and in those tears They washed away the memory of their strife; Then wept again the loss of all those years.

Joys are our wings, sorrows our spurs.

Age doesn't matter, unless your cheese.

Never write on a subject without first having read yourself full on it; and never read on a subject till you have thought yourself hungry on it.

Poverty is the only load which is the heavier the more loved ones there are to assist in bearing it.

It is simpler and easier to flatter people than to praise them.

Jesus is the purest among the mighty, and the mightiest among the pure, who, with his pierced hand has raised empires from their foundations, turned the stream of history from its old channel, and still continues to rule and guide the ages

A woman who could always love would never grow old; and the love of mother and wife would often give or preserve many charms if it were not too often combined with parental and conjugal anger. There remains in the face of women who are naturally serene and peaceful, and of those rendered so by religion, an after-spring, and later an after-summer, the reflex of their most beautiful bloom.

In women everything is heart, even the head.

Sorrows are like thunderclouds, in the distance they look black, over our heads scarcely gray.

If self-knowledge is the road to virtue, so is virtue still more the road to self-knowledge.

Only deeds give strength to life, only moderation gives it charm.

With so many thousand joys, is it not black ingratitude to call the world a place of sorrow and torment?

Gray hairs seem to my fancy like the soft light of the moon, silvering over the evening of life.

Man's feelings are always purest and most glowing in the hour of meeting and of farewell.

The burden of suffering seems a tombstone hung about our necks, while in reality it is only the weight which is necessary to keep down the diver while he is hunting for pearls.

Humankind's chief fault is that they have so many small ones.

Strong characters are brought out by change of situation, and gentle ones by permanence.

As winter strips the leaves from around us, so that we may see the distant regions they formerly concealed, so old age takes away our enjoyments only to enlarge the prospect of the coming eternity.

Each departed friend is a magnet that attracts us to the next world.

Without God there is for mankind no purpose, no goal, no hope, only a wavering future, an eternal dread of every darkness.

It is not the end of joy that makes old age so sad, but the end of hope.

The heart needs not for its heaven much space, nor many stars therein, if only the star of love has arisen.

Recollection is the only paradise from which we cannot be turned out.

Despair is the only genuine atheism.

No heroine can create a hero through love of one, but she can give birth to one

It is easy to flatter; it is harder to praise.

Laughing cheerfulness throws the light of day on all the paths of life.

The purer the golden vessel, the more readily is it bent; the higher worth of woman is sooner lost than that of man.

Has it never occurred to us, when surrounded by sorrows, that they may be sent to us only for our instruction, as we darken the eyes of birds when we wish them to sing?

Whenever, at a party, I have been in the mood to study fools, I have always looked for a great beauty: they always gather round her like flies around a fruit stall.